May 11, 2012 | Appetizers, Meat & Poultry
Last month I catered a Moroccan wedding shower for the nanny of a friend of mine. She’s marrying a childhood sweetheart, I believe, and leaving the family after having been in charge of the kids for nearly 20 years. They had picked a Moroccan theme, and cilantro and apricots feature heavily in Moroccan recipes I found online. Because they wanted only finger food, I took the general profile of flavors I found for tagine chicken recipes and made up this dish.
After making the chicken, I felt they might end up a little dry reheating them for the party, so I made a second batch of the marinade to serve as a sauce / dip for the party. You might want to do that also. And by the way, you could use this same marinade on whole chicken breasts, not cut up pieces, and it would be equally great. You could even combine the chicken, the marinade, and the apricots in a covered casserole or tagine and cook it that way, more like a stew. If anyone tries one of these other methods, I’d love to see a picture of your finished dish.
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon cumin
- ½ teaspoon turmeric
- ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
- ¼ cup cilantro
- 2 tablespoons honey
- 4 cloves garlic, chopped
- 6 whole chicken breast halves without skin, boneless, cut into 32 pieces
- 32 dried apricot halves, cut in half
- Combine all ingredients except chicken and apricots in a blender until smooth, adding a little water if needed. Toss chicken with marinade and let stand overnight in the refrigerator. Bake chicken bites until cooked through, about 15-20 minutes. Serve with an apricot on a toothpick. If desired, make a second batch of the cilantro vinaigrette for drizzling or dipping.
These look terrific! I’m just starting to cook more with the spices in this recipe, so I’m realy glad I came across it.
Lots of exciting flavors here. So I’m confused, did you serve them hot? Did you heat up the apricot also?
Yes Lea Ann, the little bites went into the oven to reheat, apricot and all, right before being served at the wedding shower!